On the whole it seems reasonable to conclude that in Tonga the

distinction between the original superhuman deities and the new human

gods tended to be obliterated in the minds of the people. More and more,

we may suppose, the deified spirits of dead men usurped the functions

and assimilated themselves to the character of the ancient divinities.

Yet between these two classes of worshipful beings Mariner draws an

important distinction which we must not overlook. He says that these new

human gods, these souls of deified nobles, "have no houses dedicated to

them, but the proper places to invoke them are their graves, which are

considered sacred, and are therefore as much respected as consecrated

houses."[133] If this distinction is well founded, the consecrated house

or temple, as we may call it, of an original god was quite different

from the grave at which a new god, that is, a dead man or woman, was

worshipped. But in spite of the high authority of Mariner it seems

doubtful whether the distinction which he makes between the temples of

the old gods and the tombs of the new ones was always recognised in

practice, and whether the two were not apt to be confounded in the minds

even of the natives. The temples of the gods, as we have seen, did not

differ in shape and structure from the houses of men, and similar

houses, as we shall see, were also built on the graves of kings and

chiefs and even of common people. What was easier than to confuse the

two classes of spirit-houses, the houses of gods and the houses of dead

kings or chiefs, especially when the memory of these potentates had

grown dim and their human personality had been forgotten? Certainly

European observers have sometimes been in doubt as to whether places to

which the natives paid religious reverence were temples or graves. In

view of this ambiguity I propose to examine some of the descriptions

which have been given by eye-witnesses of the sacred structures and

enclosure which might be interpreted either as temples or tombs. The

question has a double interest and importance, first, in its bearing on

the theory, enunciated by Herbert Spencer, that temples are commonly, if

not universally, derived from tombs,[134] and gods from dead men; and

secondly, in its bearing on the question of the origin and meaning of

megalithic monuments; for not a few of the tombs of Tongan kings and

sacred chiefs are constructed in part of very large stones.

[133] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 110

[134] Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i

(London, 1904) pp. 249 _sqq._

I will begin with the evidence of Captain Cook, an excellent observer

and faithful witness. He paid two visits to the Tonga islands, a short

one in 1773, and a longer one of between two and three months in 1777.

Speaking of his first visit to Tongataboo in 1773, he writes as follows:

"After sitting here some time, and distributing some presents to those

about us, we signified our desire to see the country. The chief

immediately took the hint, and conducted us along a lane that led to an

open green, on the one side of which was a house of worship built on a

mount that had been raised by the hand of man, about sixteen or eighteen

feet above the common level. It had an oblong figure, and was inclosed

by a wall or parapet of stone, about three feet in height. From this

wall the mount rose with a gentle slope, and was covered with a green

turf. On the top of it stood the house, which had the same figure as the

mount, about twenty feet in length, and fourteen or sixteen broad. As

soon as we came before the place, every one seated himself on the green,

about fifty or sixty yards from the front of the house. Presently came

three elderly men; who seated themselves between us and it, and began a

speech, which I understood to be a prayer, it being wholly directed to

the house. This lasted about ten minutes; and then the priests, for such

I took them to be, came and sat down along with us, when we made them

presents of such things as were about us. Having then made signs to them

that we wanted to view the premises, my friend Attago immediately got

up, and going with us, without showing the least backwardness, gave us

full liberty to examine every part of it.

"In the front were two stone steps leading to the top of the wall; from

this the ascent to the house was easy, round which was a fine gravel

walk. The house was built, in all respects, like to their common

dwelling-houses; that is, with posts and rafters; and covered with palm

thatch. The eaves came down within about three feet of the ground, which

space was filled up with strong matting made of palm leaves, as a wall.

The floor of the house was laid with fine gravel; except in the middle,

where there was an oblong square of blue pebbles, raised about six

inches higher than the floor. At one corner of the house stood an image

rudely carved in wood, and on one side lay another; each about two feet

in length. I, who had no intention to offend either them or their gods,

did not so much as touch them, but asked Attago, as well as I could, if

they were _Eatuas_, or gods. Whether he understood me or no, I cannot

say; but he immediately turned them over and over, in as rough a manner

as he would have done any other log of wood, which convinced me that

they were not there as representatives of the Divinity. I was curious to

know if the dead were interred there, and asked Attago several questions

relative thereto; but I was not sure that he understood me; at least I

did not understand the answers he made, well enough to satisfy my

inquiries. For the reader must know, that at our first coming among

these people, we hardly could understand a word they said. Even my

Otaheitean youth, and the man on board the _Adventure_, were equally at

a loss: but more of this by and by. Before we quitted the house we

thought it necessary to make an offering at the altar. Accordingly we

laid down upon the blue pebbles, some medals, nails, and several other

things; which we had no sooner done than my friend Attago took them up,

and put them in his pocket. The stones with which the walls were made

that inclosed this mount, were some of them nine or ten feet by four,

and about six inches thick. It is difficult to conceive how they can cut

such stones out of the coral rocks.

"This mount stood in a kind of grove open only on the side which fronted

the high road, and the green on which the people were seated. At this

green or open place, was a junction of five roads, two or three of which

appeared to be very public ones. The groves were composed of several

sorts of trees. Among others was the _Etoa_ tree, as it is called at

Otaheite, of which are made clubs, etc., and a kind of low palm, which

is very common in the northern parts of New Holland.

"After we had done examining this place of worship, which in their

language is called _a-fiat-tou-ca_, we desired to return."[135]

[135] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 182-184.

A little farther on, still speaking of his first visit to Tonga, Captain

Cook observes: "So little do we know of their religion, that I hardly

dare mention it. The buildings called _afiatoucas_, before mentioned,

are undoubtedly set apart for this purpose. Some of our gentlemen were

of opinion, that they were merely burying-places. I can only say, from

my own knowledge, that they are places to which particular persons

directed set speeches, which I understood to be prayers, as hath been

already related. Joining my opinion with that of others, I was inclined

to think that they are set apart to be both temples and burying-places,

as at Otaheite, or even in Europe. But I have no idea of the images

being idols; not only from what I saw myself, but from Mr. Wales's

informing me that they set one of them up, for him and others to shoot

at."[136]

[136] Captain James Cook, _op. cit._ iii. 206.

Thus Captain Cook and his party were divided in opinion as to whether

the house on the mound, within its walled enclosure built of great

stones, was a temple or a tomb. Captain Cook himself called it simply a

"house of worship" and a "place of worship," but he inclined to the view

that it was both a temple and a burying-place, and in this opinion he

was probably right. The native name which he applied to it, _afiatouca_,

means a burial-place; for it is doubtless equivalent to _fytoca_, a word

which Mariner explains to mean "a burying-place, including the grave,

the mount in which it is sunk, and a sort of shed over it."[137]

Moreover, the oblong square of blue pebbles, which Captain Cook observed

on the floor of the house on the mound, and which he regarded as the

altar, speaks also in favour of the house being a tomb; for Mariner has

described how the mourners brought white and black pebbles to the house

which stood over the grave of King Finow, and how they "strewed the

inside of the house with the white ones, and also the outside about the

_fytoca_, as a decoration to it: the black pebbles they strewed only

upon those white ones, which covered the ground directly over the body,

to about the length and breadth of a man, in the form of a very

eccentric ellipse. After this, the house over the _fytoca_," continues

Mariner, "was closed up at both ends with a reed fencing, reaching from

the eaves to the ground, and, at the front and back, with a sort of

basket-work, made of the young branches of the cocoa-nut tree, split and

interwoven in a very curious and ornamental way, to remain till the next

burial, when they are to be taken down, and, after the conclusion of the

ceremony, new ones are to be put up in like manner."[138] This

description of the house over King Finow's grave agrees so closely with

Captain Cook's description of the house in the _afiatouca_, that we may

with much probability regard the latter as a tomb, and suppose that the

"oblong square of blue pebbles," which Cook regarded as an altar and on

which he laid down his offering, marked the place of the body in the

grave: it was at once an altar and a tombstone.

[137] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 144, note *. However, in

another passage (i. 392, note *) Mariner tells us that, strictly

speaking, the word _fytoca_ applied only to the mound with the

grave in it, and not to the house upon the mound; for there were

several _fytocas_ that had no houses on them. For other mentions

of _fytocas_ and notices of them by Mariner, see _op. cit._ i.

pp. 386, note *, 387, 388, 392, 393, 394, 395, 402, ii. 214-218.

[138] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 402. A little farther on

(p. 424, note *) Mariner remarks that "mourners were accustomed

to smooth the graves of their departed friends, and cover them

with black and white pebbles."

On his second and more prolonged visit to the Tonga islands, Captain

Cook expressed, with more confidence, his opinion that the _fiatookas_,

as he calls them, were at once burial-grounds and places of worship.

Thus he says: "Their _morais_ or _fiatookas_ (for they are called by

both names, but mostly by the latter), are, as at Otaheite, and many

other parts of the world, burying-grounds and places of worship; though

some of them seemed to be only appropriated to the first purpose; but

these were small, and, in every other respect, inferior to the

others."[139] Again, in another passage he describes one of the more

stately of these temple-tombs. He says: "Some of us, accompanied by a

few of the king's attendants, and Omai as our interpreter, walked out to

take a view of a _fiatooka_, or burying-place, which we had observed to

be almost close by the house, and was much more extensive, and seemingly

of more consequence, than any we had seen at the other islands. We were

told, that it belonged to the king. It consisted of three pretty large

houses, situated upon a rising ground, or rather just by the brink of

it, with a small one, at some distance, all ranged longitudinally. The

middle house of the three first, was by much the largest, and placed in

a square, twenty-four paces by twenty-eight, raised about three feet.

The other houses were placed on little mounts, raised artificially to

the same height. The floors of these houses, as also the tops of the

mounts round them, were covered with loose, fine pebbles, and the whole

was inclosed by large flat stones of hard coral rock, properly hewn,

placed on their edges; one of which stones measured twelve feet in

length, two in breadth, and above one in thickness. One of the houses,

contrary to what we had seen before, was open on one side; and within it

were two rude, wooden busts of men; one near the entrance, and the other

farther in. On inquiring of the natives, who had followed us to the

ground, but durst not enter here, What these images were intended for?

they made us as sensible as we could wish, that they were merely

memorials of some chiefs who had been buried there, and not the

representations of any deity. Such monuments, it should seem, are seldom

raised; for these had probably been erected several ages ago. We were

told, that the dead had been buried in each of these houses; but no

marks of this appeared. In one of them, was the carved head of an

Otaheite canoe, which had been driven ashore on their coast, and

deposited here. At the foot of the rising ground was a large area, or

grass-plot, with different trees planted about it; amongst which were

several of those called _etoa_, very large. These, as they resemble the

cypresses, had a fine effect in such a place. There was also a row of

low palms near one of the houses, and behind it a ditch, in which lay a

great number of old baskets."[140]

[139] Captain Cook, _Voyages_, v. 424.

[140] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 342 _sq._

Between the departure of Cook and the arrival of Mariner the first

Protestant missionaries were fortunate enough to witness the burial of

a king of Tonga, by name Moom[=o]oe. Their description of it and of the

royal tomb entirely bears out the observations and conclusions of

Captain Cook. The _fiatooka_ or burial-ground, they tell us, "is

situated on a spot of ground about four acres. A mount rises with a

gentle slope about seven feet, and is about one hundred and twenty yards

in circumference at the base; upon the top stands a house neatly made,

which is about thirty feet long, and half that in width. The roof is

thatched, and the sides and ends left open. In the middle of this house

is the grave, the sides, ends, and bottom of which are of coral stone,

with a cover of the same: the floor of the house is of small stones. The

_etoa_ and other trees grow round the _fiatooka_."[141] Into this grave,

or rather stone vault, the missionaries saw the king's body lowered. The

stone which covered the vault was eight feet long, four feet broad, and

one foot thick. This massive stone was first raised and held in suspense

by means of two great ropes, the ends of which were wound round two

strong piles driven into the ground at the end of the house. The ropes

were held by about two hundred men, who, when the king's body had been

deposited in the grave, slowly lowered the great stone and covered the

vault.[142] Some years later Mariner witnessed the funeral of another

king of Tonga, Finow the First; and he similarly describes how the tomb

was a large stone vault, sunk about ten feet deep in the ground, the

covering stone of which was hoisted by the main strength of a hundred

and fifty or two hundred men pulling at the two ends of a rope; when the

bodies of the king and his daughter had been laid side by side in the

vault the massive stone was lowered by the men with a great shout.[143]

The number of the men required to raise and lower these great stones

gives us some idea of their weight.

[141] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean_, pp. 240 _sq._

[142] Captain James Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 244.

[143] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 387 _sq._

Thus far we have been dealing only with the tombs of the civil kings of

Tonga. But far more stately and massive are the tombs of the sacred

kings or pontiffs, the Tooitongas, which still exist and still excite

the curiosity and admiration of European observers. The Tongan name for

these tombs is _langi_, which properly means "sky," also "a band of

singers"; but there appears to be no connexion between these different

meanings of the word.[144] The tombs are situated in Tongataboo, not far

from Mooa, the old capital of the island. They stand near the

south-eastern shore of the lagoon, which, under the name of the Mooa

Inlet, penetrates deeply into the northern side of Tongataboo. Beginning

at the northern outskirts of the village of Labaha, they stretch inland

for more than half a mile into the forest.[145] They are of various

constructions and shapes. Some consist of a square enclosure, on the

level of the ground, the boundary walls being formed of large stones;

while at each corner of the square two high stones, rising above the

wall, are placed upright at right angles to each other and in a line

with their respective sides.[146] But apparently the more usual and

characteristic type of tomb has the form of a truncated pyramid or

oblong platform raised in a series of steps or terraces, which are built

of massive blocks of coral. The number of steps or terraces seems to

vary from one to four according to the height of the monument.[147] It

is much to be regretted that no one has yet counted and mapped out these

tombs and recorded the names of their royal or divine occupants, so far

as they are remembered; but a trace of the religious awe which once

invested this hallowed ground still avails to keep it inviolate. A

proposal which Sir Basil Thomson made to clear away the forest and

preserve the tombs was very coldly received; in the eyes of the natives,

professing Christians as they are, it probably savoured of sacrilege.

The ancient custom was to clear the ground about every new tomb, and

after the interment to suffer the tropical undergrowth to swallow it up

for ever. Nowadays no holy pontiffs are borne to their last

resting-place in these hallowed shades; so the forest is never cleared,

and nature is left free to run wild. In consequence the tombs are so

overgrown and overshadowed that it is difficult to photograph them in

the gloomy and tangled thicket. Great _ifi_ trees[148] overhang them:

banyan-trees have sprouted on the terraces and thrust their roots into

every crevice, mantling the stones with a lacework of tendrils, which

year by year rend huge blocks asunder, until the original form of the

terrace is almost obliterated. Sir Basil Thomson followed the chain of

tombs for about half a mile, but on each occasion his guides told him

that there were other smaller tombs farther inland. The tombs increase

in size and in importance as they near the shore of the lagoon, and to

seven or eight of the larger ones the names of the occupants can be

assigned; but the names of the sacred chiefs who sleep in the smaller

tombs inland are quite forgotten. Some of them are mere enclosures of

stones, not squared, but taken haphazard from the reef.[149]

[144] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 213 _sq._

[145] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) p. 86.

[146] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean_, pp. 283 _sq._

[147] The tomb described and illustrated by the first

missionaries had four massive and lofty steps, each of them five

and a half feet broad and four feet or three feet nine inches

high. See Captain James Wilson, _l.c._, with the plate facing p.

284. One such tomb, rising in four tiers, is ascribed

traditionally to a female Tooitonga, whose name has been

forgotten. See (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities

of Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) p. 88 n.^2.

[148] The Tahitian chestnut (_Inocarpus edulis_); see above, p.

74, note^2.

[149] (Sir) Basil Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_

(Edinburgh and London, 1894), pp. 379 _sq._; _id._ "Notes upon

the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological

Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 86. According to an earlier

authority, the Tongans could name and point out the tombs of no

less than thirty Tooitongas. See the letter of Mr. Philip

Hervey, quoted in _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of

London_, Second Series, vol. ii. p. 77.

The tombs were built in the lifetime of the sacred chiefs who were to

lie in them, and their size accordingly affords a certain measure of the

power and influence of the great men interred in them. Among the largest

is the tomb which goes by the name of Telea, though it is said to

contain no body, Telea himself being buried in the tomb next to it. We

are told that, dissatisfied with the first sepulchre that was built for

him, he replaced it by the other, which is also of great size. The most

modern of the tombs is that of Laufilitonga, the last to bear the title

of Tooitonga. He died a Christian about 1840 and was buried in the tomb

of very inferior size which crowns the village cemetery. The most

ancient cannot be dated; but that some are older than A.D. 1535 may be

inferred from the tradition that Takalaua, a Tooitonga, was assassinated

about that time because he was a tyrant who compelled his people to drag

great stones from Liku, at the back of the island, to the burial ground

at Mooa; the distance is about a mile and a half.[150]

[150] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) pp. 86 _sq._, 88 n.^2. As to the legend of the tyrant

Takalaua, see _id._ _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, pp.

294-302.

The first, so far as I know, to see and describe these remarkable tombs

were the earliest missionaries to Tonga about the end of the eighteenth

century. Speaking of the burial ground at Mooa, where lay interred the

divine chiefs whose title was Tooitonga and whose family name was

Futtaf[=a]ihe or Fatafehi, the missionaries observe that "the

_fiatookas_ are remarkable. There lie the Futtaf[=a]ihes for many

generations, some vast and ruinous, which is the case with the largest;

the house on the top of it is fallen, and the area and tomb itself

overgrown with wood and weeds."[151] Later on they had the advantage of

being conducted over the august cemetery by the Futtaf[=a]ihe or

Tooitonga of the day in person, who gave them some explanations

concerning these sepulchres of his ancestors. To quote their

description, they say that the tombs "lie ranged in a line eastward from

his house, among a grove of trees, and are many in number, and of

different constructions: some, in a square form, were not in the least

raised above the level of the common ground; a row of large stones

formed the sides, and at each corner two high stones were placed upright

at right angles to each other, and in a line with their respective

sides: others were such as the brethren describe that of Moom[=o]oe to

be: and a third sort were built square like the first; the largest of

which was at the base one hundred and fifty-six feet by one hundred and

forty; it had four steps from the bottom to the top, that run quite

round the pile: one stone composed the height of each step, a part of it

being sunk in the ground; and some of these stones in the wall of the

lower are immensely large; one, which I measured, was twenty-four feet

by twelve, and two feet thick; these Futtaf[=a]ihe informed me were

brought in double canoes from the island of Lefooga. They are coral

stone, and are hewn into a tolerably good shape, both with respect to

the straightness of their sides and flatness of their surfaces. They are

now so hardened by the weather, that the great difficulty we had in

breaking a specimen of one corner made it not easy to conjecture how the

labour of hewing them at first had been effected; as, by the marks of

antiquity which some of them bear, they must have been built long before

Tasman showed the natives an iron tool. Besides the trees which grow on

the top and sides of most of them, there are the _etooa_, and a variety

of other trees about them; and these, together with the thousands of

bats which hang on their branches, all contribute to the awful solemnity

of those sepulchral mansions of the ancient chiefs. On our way back

Futtaf[=a]ihe told us that all the _fiatookas_ we had seen were built by

his ancestors, who also lay interred in them; and as there appeared no

reason to doubt the truth of this, it proves that a supreme power in the

government of the island must for many generations have been in the

family of the Futtaf[=a]ihes: for though there were many _fiatookas_ in

the island, the brethren, who had seen most of them, said they were not

to be compared to these for magnitude, either in the pile or the stones

which compose them."[152]

[151] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean,_ p. 252. As to Futtaf[=a]ihe, the Tooitonga or

divine chief of their time, the missionaries remark (_l.c._)

that "Futtaf[=a]ihe is very superstitious, and himself esteemed

as an _odooa_ or god." Here _odooa_ is the Polynesian word which

is usually spelled _atua_. Mariner tells us (_Tonga Islands_,

ii. 76) that the family name of the Tooitonga was Fatafehi,

which seems to be only another way of spelling Futtaf[=a]ihe,

the form adopted by the missionaries. Captain Cook similarly

gives Futtaf[=a]ihe as the family name of the sacred kings or

Tooitongas, deriving the name "from the God so called, who is

probably their tutelary patron, and perhaps their common

ancestor." See Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 425.

[152] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean_, pp. 283-285. The description is accompanied by

an engraved plate, which illustrates the three types of tombs

mentioned in the text. In the foreground is the stepped pyramid,

a massive and lofty structure, its flat top surmounted by a hut.

To the right, in the distance, is seen the square walled

enclosure, with high stones standing upright at the corners of

the walls, and with a hut enclosed in the middle of the square.

In the background appears a mound enclosed by a wall and

surmounted by a hut. Thus a hut figures as an essential part

in each type of tomb. However, Mariner tells us that "they

have several _fytocas_ which have no houses on them" (_Tonga

Islands_, i. 392 note *).

Top.

____________

|

| 3 ft. 9 in.

|

5-1/2 feet. |

_____________|

|

| 3 ft. 9 in.

|

5-1/2 feet. |

_____________|

|

| 3 ft. 9 in.

|

5-1/2 feet. | PROFILE OF THE STEPS.

_____________|

|

| 4 feet.

|

|

|

|

Some thirty years later the tombs of the Tooitongas were visited and

described by the French explorer, J. Dumont d'Urville. His description

is worth quoting. He says: "I directed my steps to the splendid

_fai-tokas_ of the Fata-Fais. As these monuments are essentially taboo,

in the absence of the Tooi-tonga no one looks after their upkeep, and

they are now buried on every side among dark masses of trees and almost

impenetrable thickets. Hence we had some difficulty in approaching them,

and it was impossible for us to get a single general view of the whole

of these structures, which must have a somewhat solemn effect when the

ground is properly cleared.

"For the most part these mausoleums have the form of great rectangular

spaces surrounded by enormous blocks of stone, of which some are as much

as from fifteen to twenty feet long by six or eight broad and two feet

thick. The most sumptuous of these monuments have four or five rows of

steps, making up a total height of eighteen or twenty feet. The interior

is filled up with shingle and fragments of unhewn coral. One of these

_fai-tokas_, which I measured, was a hundred and eighty feet long by a

hundred and twenty broad. At one of the upper angles I observed a block

of considerable size with a deep cutting in it. I was told that it was

the seat of the Tooi-tonga-fafine[153]; it was there that she sat to

preside at the ceremony of the funeral of the Tooi-tonga.

[153] The Tooi-tonga-fafine (or fefine) was the Tooitonga's

sister and ranked above him. Her title means "the lady

Tooi-tonga." "Her dignity is very great. She is treated as a

kind of divinity. Her rank is too high to allow of her uniting

herself in marriage with any mortal: but it is not thought wrong

or degrading for her to have a family, and in case of the birth

of a daughter the child becomes the _Tamaha_. This lady rises

higher than her mother in rank, and is nearer the gods. Every

one approaches her with gifts and homage. Her grandfather will

bring his offerings and sit down before her, with all humility,

like any of the common people. Sick people come to her for cure"

(Miss Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_, p. 145,

apparently from the information of Mr. John Thomas). Captain

Cook learned with surprise that Poulaho, the Tooitonga of his

time (whom Cook speaks of as the king) acknowledged three women

as his superiors. "On our inquiring, who these extraordinary

personages were, whom they distinguish by the name and title of

_Tammaha_, we were told that the late king, Poulaho's father,

had a sister of equal rank, and elder than himself; that she, by

a man who came from the island of Feejee, had a son and two

daughters; and that these three persons, as well as their

mother, rank above Futtafaihe the king. We endeavoured, in vain,

to trace the reason of this singular pre-eminence of the

_Tammahas_; for we could learn nothing besides this account of

their pedigree. The mother and one of the daughters called

Tooeela-Kaipa, live at Vavaoo. Latoolibooloo, the son, and the

other daughter, whose name is Moungoula-Kaipa, reside at

Tongataboo. The latter is the woman who is mentioned to have

dined with me on the 21st of June. This gave occasion to our

discovering her superiority over the king, who would not eat in

her presence, though she made no scruple to do so before him,

and received from him the customary obeisance, by touching her

foot." See Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 430 _sq._

"Some of these edifices were of an oval form, but they were much

smaller. Each of them was surmounted by a small hut, which served as an

oratory or house for the spirit of the dead; most of them have been

destroyed by the lapse of time, and only traces of them are left

scattered on the ground.

"The enormous blocks of coral employed in the construction of these

monuments have all been brought by sea from Hifo to Mooa. They were got

on the shore of the sea at Hifo, were hewn on the spot, and were

transported in great canoes; then they were landed at Mooa and drawn on

rollers to the place of their destination. These monuments are

astonishing evidence of the patience which they must have demanded on

the part of these islanders; they were ocular testimony to me of the

high degree of civilisation which the natives had reached. Man must have

risen to ideas of a much higher order than those of a simple savage

before he would take so great pains for the single object of

consecrating the memory of his chiefs.

"Such tombs are no longer built in Tongataboo: people content themselves

with simple mounds surrounded by a row of posts or even an ordinary

palisade. However, Singleton assured me that Finow the Younger had

erected two great _fai-tokas_ of stone in Vavao, one for the last

Tooitonga, and one for his father."[154]

[154] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du

Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1832) pp. 106-108. Singleton was an

Englishman, one of the crew of the _Port-au-Prince_, the ship in

which Mariner sailed. When Dumont d'Urville visited Tonga,

Singleton had lived as a native among the natives for

twenty-three years; he was married and had children, and he

hoped to end his days in Tongataboo. See J. Dumont d'Urville,

_op. cit._ iv. 23 _sq._

The Frenchman, De Sainson, who accompanied Dumont d'Urville on his visit

to Tongataboo, has also described the tombs of the Tooitongas at Mooa

from personal observation. I will quote his description: "It is in the

heart of the forest that the ancient inhabitants of these countries, who

idolized their Kings (Tooi-tongas), placed the tombs of that sacred

race. These monuments of a more enterprising age still astonish the

beholder by their mass and their extent. The _fai-tokas_, as these

burial-places are called, are artificial eminences, on the top of which,

in the form of a square, are three or four crosses of great granitic

blocks arranged as steps, of which each block may be four or five feet

high. If there is only a single step on the top of the mound, it is

because only a single Tooi-tonga sleeps there in the grave; if the bones

of a whole family are deposited in a common tomb, three or four steps,

one above the other, mark their union in death. Some of these monuments

which contain only a single body are arranged in an oval. I counted more

than twelve of these immense structures, and yet we left a great many

aside. I counted more than one stone between eight and fifteen feet

long; and I conceived a high idea of those men of ancient days who

erected over the remains of their kings these imperishable mausoleums,

in an island based on coral, where it would be difficult to find a stone

of two feet square. I imagined them to be very different from their

effeminate descendants, those men of old who went in their canoes more

than a hundred and fifty leagues to look for the enormous blocks of

which these tombs are built, who cut them without the help of iron, and

succeeded, by means unknown, in planting them on these hillocks, where

by their own weight they are fixed for ever, like the Druidical

monuments of Brittany, which one would say were dropped on earth rather

by the magic of talismans than by the power of man.

"The present inhabitants of Tonga contemplate with a pious awe the fruit

of the labours and patience of their forefathers, without dreaming for a

moment of imitating them in their noble enterprises. A distant voyage

affrights these degenerate scions of a hardy race, and the great canoes

which still survive, sheltered under sheds very skilfully built, are

little more than the useless encumbrance of chiefs grown languid in the

long peace which has infected the whole people with habits of indolence.

"The most recent tombs consist of a small house enclosed on all sides,

built on a rising ground, and shaded by a circle of mimosas, a tree

sacred to the dead. Most of the illustrious graves are clustered

together at Mafanga, a large village of which the whole territory is

sacred on account of the hallowed relics which it contains. Along with

the corpse they bury at the depth of a few inches small wooden effigies

representing persons of both sexes. I had occasion to unearth a few of

these little statues, and I remarked in them an astonishing feeling for

artistic design."[155]

[155] "Extrait du Journal de M. de Sainson," in J. Dumont

d'Urville, _Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage_, iv.

(Paris, 1832) pp. 361 _sq._

Some sixteen years later a Catholic missionary, living among the heathen

population of Tongataboo, wrote thus: "Nothing equals the care which

they take in the burial of their dead. As soon as a native has breathed

his last, the neighbours are informed, and immediately all the women

come to weep about the corpse. Here the men never weep. The body is kept

thus for a day or two, during which they are busy building a tomb near

the dwelling of the deceased's family. The sepulchral house is neat,

built on an eminence, surrounded by a pretty fence of choice bamboos;

the enclosure is planted with all kinds of odoriferous shrubs,

especially evergreens. Finally, the monument is covered by a roof

artistically constructed. For the tombs of kings and the greatest chiefs

they go to distant islands to find huge stones to crown the grave. I

have seen one twenty-four feet long by eight broad and at least eighteen

inches thick. One of these tombs was built by the natives of Wallis

Island, who brought the enormous blocks in immense canoes. It is

wonderful for these peoples."[156]

[156] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_,

xvii. (1845) pp. 12 _sq._

Captain Erskine, who visited Tongataboo in 1849, says that "near the

landing-place at the village of Holobeka, off which we were lying, we

saw overshadowed with trees, one of the _faitokas_, or old burial-places

of the country, which, although no longer 'tabu,' are still in some

cases used as places of sepulture, and very carefully kept. This one was

an oblong square platform a few feet high, surrounded by a stone wall,

the interior being beautifully paved with coloured corals and gravel;

the house or temple, which Captain Cook and others describe as occupying

the centre, having been, I suppose, removed. I saw but one other of

these monuments during our stay among the islands, the largest of which

stands on several rows of steps, as described by all former

visitors."[157]

[157] J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of

the Western Pacific_ (London, 1853), p. 130.

Thomas West, who lived as a missionary in the Tongan islands from 1846

to 1855, tells us that "chiefs were usually interred in tombs,

constructed of blocks of sandstone, cut from suitable localities by the

seashore, where, at a little depth from the surface, layers of hard and

durable sandstone are found, even on many of the coralline islands. In

several of the ancient burial-places, similar stones, arranged in

terraces, surround the whole enclosure. Some of these are of immense

size, and seem to indicate the possession, on the part of former

inhabitants, either of greater energy than the present race, or of

better tools and appliances. The burial-places of the Tonguese are

always surrounded by the most imposing foliage of the tropics, and

placed in sequestered spots. A mound of earth is raised, of dimensions

varying with the necessities of the place; and, whenever a grave is

opened within the limits of this mound, it is always filled up with

beautiful white sand, and never contains more than one body. No particle

of clay or earthy mould is allowed to touch the remains of the dead. The

sand is brought in baskets by the chief mourners, who sometimes sail or

journey many miles to procure it; and each person pours the contents

into the grave until it is sufficiently filled up. The top of the grave

is, afterwards, carefully tended and decorated with black pebbles and

red coral, arranged in various devices, which have a very pretty effect.

Small houses are also placed over the tombs of the chiefs and

gentry."[158]

[158] Thomas West, _Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia_

(London, 1865), pp. 268 _sq._

In more recent years the tombs of the Tooitongas at Mooa have been

visited by Sir Basil Thomson, who has described and discussed them.[159]

From an anonymous pamphlet called _The Wairarapa Wilderness_, written by

the passengers of the s.s. _Wairarapa_ and published in 1884, Sir Basil

Thomson quotes a passage containing a description of the tombs, with

measurements which, he tells us, are accurate as far as they go. From it

I will extract a few particulars. The writers inform us that the tombs

are built of blocks of coral which vary in length and thickness; some of

the largest they found to be from fifteen to eighteen feet long and from

one and a half to two feet thick. The largest measured by them is

twenty-two feet long and two feet thick and stands between seven and

eight feet above the ground. This great stone, now split in two, is at

the middle of the lowest step of one of the pyramidal tombs. The height

of the steps varies much in the different pyramids; one step was found

to be four feet high. The breadth of each step is three feet or more: it

has been carefully levelled and covered with coral gravel. The stones

fit very closely and are very regular at top and bottom throughout the

tiers. The corners of one pyramid observed by the writers are formed of

huge rectangular stones, which seem to have been put in position before

they were finally faced. On the upper surface of the largest stone is a

deep hollow about the size and shape of a large chestnut mortar. Sir

Basil Thomson, who has examined this hollow, believes it to be a natural

cavity which has been artificially smoothed by a workman. He suggests

that it may have been lined with leaves and used as a bowl for brewing

kava at the funeral ceremonies. On one mound the writers of the

pamphlet remarked a large flat stone, some five and a half feet square;

and in several of the tombs they noticed huge slabs of volcanic stone

placed indiscriminately side by side with blocks of coral. The writers

measured the bases of three of the tombs and found them to be about two

chains (one hundred and thirty-two feet) long by a chain and a half

(ninety-nine feet) broad; the base of a fourth was even larger.[160]

[159] (Sir) Basil Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, pp.

379 _sq._; _id._ "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal

of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 86-88.

[160] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) pp. 87 _sq._

Surveying these various accounts of the tombs of the Tooitongas or

sacred chiefs, we may perhaps conclude that, while the type of tomb

varied in different cases, the most characteristic, and certainly the

most remarkable, type was that of a stepped or terraced pyramid built of

such large blocks of stone as to merit the name of megalithic monuments.

So far as I have observed in the accounts given of them, this type of

tomb was reserved exclusively for the sacred chiefs, the Tooitongas,

whom the Tongans regarded as divine and as direct descendants of the

gods. The civil kings, so far as appears, were not buried in these

massive pyramids, but merely in stone vaults sunk in the summits of

grassy mounds.

It is natural, with Sir Basil Thomson,[161] to compare the pyramids of

the Tooitongas with the similar structures called _morais_ or _marais_

which are found in Tahiti and the Marquesas islands. Indeed, the very

name _morai_ was sometimes applied to them by the Tongans themselves,

though more usually they called them _fiatookas_, which was simply the

common word for burying-ground.[162] In Tahiti and the Marquesas islands

these _marais_ were in like manner truncated pyramids, rising in a

series of steps or tiers, built of stones, some of which were large, but

apparently not so large as in the corresponding Tongan edifices; for in

describing one of the largest of the Tahitian _morais_ or _marais_ Cook

mentions only one stone measuring as much as four feet seven inches in

length by two feet four in breadth, though he found several three and a

half feet long by two and a half feet broad. These dimensions can hardly

compare with the size of the blocks in the tombs of the Tooitongas, some

of which, as we have seen, measure fifteen, eighteen, and even

twenty-two or twenty-four feet in length by eight or twelve feet in

height. These Tahitian and Marquesan pyramids are commonly described as

temples, and justly so, because the gods were worshipped there and human

sacrifices were offered on them.[163] But they were also, like the

similar structures in Tonga, used in certain cases for the burial of the

dead, or at all events for the preservation of their embalmed bodies.

Captain Cook seems even to have regarded the Tahitian _morais_ primarily

as burying-grounds and only secondarily as places of worship.[164] In

the island of Huahine, one of the Society Islands, the sovereign chiefs

were buried in a _marai_, where they lay, we are told, in more than

Oriental state.[165] William Ellis, one of our best authorities on the

religion of the Tahitians, tells us that "the family, district, or royal

_maraes_ were the general depositories of the bones of the departed,

whose bodies had been embalmed, and whose skulls were sometimes

preserved in the dwelling of the survivors. The _marae_ or temple

being sacred, and the bodies being under the guardianship of the gods,

were in general considered secure when deposited there. This was not,

however, always the case; and in times of war, the victors sometimes

not only despoiled the temples of the vanquished, and bore away their

idol, but robbed the sacred enclosure of the bones of celebrated

individuals."[166] Moerenhout, another good authority on the Tahitian

religion, informs us that the _marais_ which belonged to individuals

often served as cemeteries and were only the more respected on that

account; but he says that in the public _marais_ almost the only persons

buried were the human victims offered in sacrifice, and sometimes the

priests, who were laid face downwards in the grave, for the curious

reason that otherwise the gaze of the dead men would blight the trees

and cause the fruit to fall to the ground.[167]

[161] (Sir) Basil Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, p.

379.

[162] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 424. Elsewhere (v. 364)

he speaks of "a _morai_ or _fiatooka_"; and shortly afterwards,

referring to the same structure, he mentions it as "this

_morai_, or what I may as well call temple" (p. 365). As to the

equivalence of the words _morai_ and _marai_ (_marae_), see J.

A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux Iles du Grand Ocean_ (Paris, 1837),

i. 466; and as to the significance of the word in its various

dialectical forms, see E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative

Dictionary_, p. 213, _s.v._ "malae."

[163] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, i. 157 _sqq._; J. R.

Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage round the World_

(London, 1788), pp. 543 _sqq._; Captain James Wilson,

_Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp. 207

_sqq._; David Porter, _Journal of a Cruise made to the Pacific

Ocean_ (New York, 1822), ii. 38 _sq._; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet,

_Journal of Voyages and Travels_ (London, 1831), i. 240-248, 265

_sqq._, 271, 274, 529 _sq._, ii. 13 _sq._, 38 _sq._; W. Ellis,

_Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i.

340, 405; J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux Iles du Grand Ocean_,

i. 466-470; G. H. von Langsdorff, _Reise um die Welt_ (Frankfurt

am Mayn, 1812), i. 115, 134; H. Melville, _Typee_ (London,

N.D.), pp. 166-169 (_Everyman's Library_); Matthias G----,

_Lettres sur les Iles Marquises_ (Paris, 1843), pp. 54 _sq._;

C. E. Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_ (Leipzig,

1875-1876), i. 49, ii. 180, 183 _sq._; G. Gerland, in Th. Waitz,

_Anthropologie_, vi (Leipzig, 1872) pp. 376 _sqq._

[164] Capt. James Cook, _Voyages_, i. 157 _sq._, "Their name for

such burying-grounds, which are also places of worship, is

_Morai_." Compare _id._, i. 217, 219, 220, 224, vi. 37, 41; J.

Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_ (London, 1813), p. 151, "the

_morais_, which serve the double purpose of places of worship

and receptacles for the dead." Compare J. R. Forster,

_Observations_, p. 545, "To ornament the _marais_ and to honour

by it the gods and the decayed buried there, the inhabitants

plant several sorts of trees near them."

[165] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 271.

[166] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 405. Elsewhere (p.

401), speaking of the Tahitian burial customs, Ellis observes

that "the skull was carefully kept in the family, while the

other bones, etc., were buried within the precincts of the

family temple."

[167] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 470. As to the Tahitian

custom of burying the dead in the _marais_, see also C. E.

Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_, ii. 183 _sq._,

according to whom only the bodies of persons of high rank were

interred in these sanctuaries.

In the Marquesas islands the _morais_ appear to have been also used

occasionally or even regularly as burial-places. Langsdorff, one of our

earliest authorities on these islands, speaks of a _morai_ simply as a

place of burial.[168] He tells us that the mummified bodies of the dead

were deposited on scaffolds in the _morai_ or family burial-place, and

that the people of neighbouring but hostile districts used to try to

steal each other's dead from the _morais_, and deemed it a great triumph

when they succeeded in the attempt. To defeat such attempts, when the

inhabitants of a district expected to be attacked in force by their

enemies, they were wont to remove their dead from the _morai_ and bury

them in the neighbourhood.[169] Again, in their monograph on the

Marquesas islands, the French writers Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz

recognise only the mortuary aspect of the _morais_. They say: "The

_morais_, funeral monuments where the bodies are deposited, are set up

on a platform of stone, which is the base of all Nukahivan

constructions. They are to be found scattered in the whole extent of the

valleys; no particular condition seems to be required in the choice of

the site. Near the shore of Taiohae is the _morai_ which contains the

remains of a brother of the _atepeiou Patini_, an uncle of Moana, who

died some years ago, as they tell us."[170]

[168] G. H. von Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 115.

[169] G. H. von Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 134.

[170] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _Iles Marquises ou

Nouka-hiva_ (Paris, 1843), p. 253.

Thus to some extent, in function as well as in form, these pyramidical

temples of Tahiti and the Marquesas islands corresponded to the

megalithic monuments of the Tooitongas or sacred chiefs of Tonga; in

fact, they were mausoleums as well as temples. We are not at liberty to

assume, with one authority on the Polynesians, that they were mausoleums

first and foremost, and that they only developed into temples at a later

time.[171] It is possible, on the contrary, that from the outset they

were temples dedicated to the worship of the high gods, and that the

custom of depositing the dead in them was a later practice adopted for

the sake of the protection which these holy places might be expected to

afford against the efforts of enemies to carry off and desecrate the

remains of the departed. Dr. Rivers propounded a theory that the custom

of building these megalithic monuments in the form of pyramids was

introduced into the Pacific by a people who brought with them a secret

worship of the sun, and he apparently inclined to regard the monuments

themselves as at least associated with that worship.[172] The theory can

hardly apply to the megalithic monuments of the Tooitongas in

Tongataboo; for the evidence which I have adduced seems to render it

certain that these monuments were erected primarily as tombs to receive

the bodies of the sacred chiefs. It is true that these tombs enjoyed a

sacred character and were the scene of worship which justly entitles

them to rank as temples; but so far as they were temples, they were

devoted to the worship, not of the sun, but of the dead.

[171] C. E. Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_, ii. 180.

[172] W. H. R. Rivers, "Sun-cult and Megaliths in Oceania,"

_American Anthropologist_, N.S. xvii. (1915) pp. 431 _sqq._

Thus our enquiry into the meaning and origin of these interesting

monuments entirely confirms the view of the shrewd and observant Captain

Cook that the _fiatookas_, as the Tongans called them, were both places

of burial and places of worship.

Finally, the evidence which I have cited appears to render it highly

probable that these imposing monuments were built, not by a prehistoric

people, predecessors of the Tongans in the islands, but by the Tongans

themselves; for not only do the people affirm that the tombs were

erected by their ancestors, but they have definite traditions of some of

the chiefs who built them, and are buried in them; and they still

profess to remember some of the islands from which the huge stones were

brought to Tongataboo in great double canoes.

That the graves of the great chiefs were, like temples, regarded by the

people with religious reverence appears plainly from a statement of

Mariner. He tells us that a place called Mafanga, in the western part of

Tongataboo, being a piece of land about half a mile square, was

consecrated ground. "In this spot," he says, "are the graves where the

greatest chiefs from time immemorial have been buried, and the place is

therefore considered sacred; it would be a sacrilege to fight here, and

nobody can be prevented from landing: if the most inveterate enemies

meet upon this ground, they must look upon each other as friends, under

penalty of the displeasure of the gods, and consequently an untimely

death, or some great misfortune. There are several of these consecrated

places on different islands."[173] Thus the reverence paid to the tombs

of the chiefs was like the reverence paid to the consecrated houses and

enclosures of the gods; we have already seen what a sacrilege it was

deemed to fight or to pursue an enemy within the consecrated enclosure

of a god,[174] and we now learn that it was equally a sacrilege to fight

within the ground that was hallowed by the graves of the chiefs.

[173] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 88.

[174] Above, pp. 74 _sqq._

Mariner has described for us the worship paid by the king and his chiefs

to one of the sacred graves at Mafanga. One morning Finow the king,

accompanied by several of his chiefs and their ministers (the

_matabooles_), landed at Mafanga and immediately proceeded to his

father's grave to perform a ceremony called _toogi_. Mariner attended

the party and witnessed the ceremony. All who went to participate in it

assumed the attire of mourners or suppliants, that is, they wore mats

instead of their usual dress and they had wreaths, made of the leaves of

the _ifi_ tree, round their necks. They sat down before the grave, and

the king and all of them beat their cheeks with their fists for about

half a minute without speaking a word. One of the principal ministers

(_matabooles_) then addressed the spirit of the king's father to the

following effect: "Behold the man (meaning Finow, the king) who has come

to Tonga to fight his enemies. Be pleased with him, and grant him thy

protection. He comes to battle, hoping he is not doing wrong. He has

always held Tooitonga in the highest respect, and has attended to all

religious ceremonies with exactness." One of the attendants then went to

the king and received from him a piece of kava root, which he laid down

on the raised mount before the burial-place (_fytoka_). Several others,

who had pieces of kava root in their bosoms, went up to the grave in

like manner and deposited them there.[175]

[175] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 88 _sq._

Thus the king prayed to the spirit of his dead father at his grave and

made an offering at the tomb. What more could he do to a god at his

temple? And in general we are told that when a great blessing was

desired, or a serious evil deprecated, if the people wished to enjoy

health or beget children, to be successful at sea, or victorious in war,

they would go to the burial grounds of their great chiefs, clean them

up thoroughly, sprinkle the floor with sand, and lay down their

offerings.[176] When Finow the king was dying, his friends carried him

on a bier, not only to the temples of the great gods Tali-y-Toobo and

Tooi-fooa-Bolotoo, where prayers for his recovery were offered; they

bore him also to the grave of a chieftainess and invoked her spirit in

like manner to pity and spare the expiring monarch.[177] Apparently they

thought that the ghost of the chieftainess was quite as able as the

great gods to heal the sick and restore the dying.

[176] Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_, p. 127.

[177] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 367.

But on no occasion, perhaps, was the assimilation of dead men to gods

so conspicuous as at the annual offering of first-fruits, which seems to

have been the most impressive of all the yearly rites observed by the

Tongans. The ceremony was observed once a year just before the yams in

general had arrived at a state of maturity; the yams offered at it were

of a kind which admitted of being planted sooner than the others, and

which consequently, ripening earlier, were the first-fruits of the yam

season. The object of the offering was to ensure the protection of the

gods, that their favour might be extended to the welfare of the nation

generally, and in particular to the productions of the earth, of which

in Tonga yams are the most important. At this solemn ceremony the new

yams, slung on poles, were brought from distant islands, carried in

procession to the grave of the late Tooitonga, and deposited in front of

it, their bearers sitting down beside them. Thereupon one of the

ministers (_matabooles_) of the living Tooitonga arose, advanced, and

sat down before the grave, a little in front of the men who had brought

the yams. Next he addressed the gods generally, and afterwards

particularly, mentioning the late Tooitonga and the names of several

others. In doing so he returned thanks for their divine bounty in

favouring the land with the prospect of a good harvest, and prayed that

their beneficence might be continued in future. In this harvest

thanksgiving the spirit of the dead Tooitonga seems to have ranked on an

equality with the original or superhuman gods; indeed, in a sense he

took precedence of them, since the offerings were presented at his

grave. The first-fruits, we are told, were offered to the gods in the

person of the divine chief Tooitonga.[178]

[178] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 196-202, compare p. 78.

The ceremony was also witnessed, though not understood, by

Captain Cook (_Voyages_, v. 363 _sqq._) and by the first English

missionaries (Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the

Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp. 264 _sq._).

On the whole we may conclude that, however sharp a distinction was drawn

in theory between the old gods, who had always been gods, and the new

gods, who had once been men, the line which divided them in practice was

wavering and blurred. The dead men and women were fast rising, if they

had not already risen, to an equality with the ancient deities. We may

even surmise that some of these old gods themselves were human beings,

whose original humanity was forgotten.

The tombs of the kings and sacred chiefs may be described as megalithic

monuments in so far as immense stones were often employed in the

construction either of the enclosing walls or of the high steps which

led up to the summit of the mound where the grave was dug. It is

possible, and indeed probable, that great stones were similarly employed

as ornaments or accessories of the consecrated houses or temples of the

primary gods, but of such an employment I have met with no express

notice among our authorities. So far as their descriptions allow us to

judge, these megalithic monuments of the Tongans were purely sepulchral

in character; they were dedicated only to the worship of the dead. But

there exists at least one other remarkable megalithic monument in these

islands of which the original meaning is quite uncertain, and of which

consequently we cannot confidently say that it was erected for the sake

of honouring or propitiating the spirits of the departed. The monument

in question is situated near the eastern extremity of Tongataboo, at a

distance of three or four hundred yards from the beach and facing

towards the island of Eua. The land on which it stands was the private

property of the Tooitongas, whose megalithic tombs are situated some

eight or nine miles away to the west. In the intervening country, which

is perfectly flat and partly covered with forest, partly under

cultivation, there are said to be no other monuments or ruins. It is

remarkable that this imposing monument, which naturally impresses the

observer by its resemblance to the trilithons or gate-like structures of

Stonehenge, should have apparently escaped the observation of Europeans

down to the middle of the nineteenth century. It is not mentioned by

Cook and Mariner, nor even by those who, like the first missionaries and

Dumont d'Urville, described in some detail the tombs of the Tooitongas

not many miles off. Perhaps the solitariness of the surrounding country

may partly account for their ignorance and silence; for there are said

to be few inhabitants in this part of the island and none at all in the

immediate neighbourhood of the monument. It seems to have been first

discovered by Mr. Philip Hervey of Sydney in 1850 or 1851, but his

description of it was not published for some ten years. In August 1852

it was seen by Dr. Charles Forbes, Surgeon of H.M.S. _Calliope_, and his

description of it was published by the Society of Antiquaries of London

in the following year. In 1865 it was seen and briefly described by Mr.

Foljambe of H.M.S. _Curacoa_. Some twenty years later the passengers of

the s.s. _Wairarapa_, on a yachting cruise from New Zealand, visited the

spot and published an account of the structure. Still later Sir Basil

Thomson examined the monument and discussed its history.[179]

[179] See the letter of Dr. Charles Forbes, in _Archaeologia, or

Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity_, xxxv. (London,

1853) p. 496 (with a woodcut); _Proceedings of the Society of

Antiquaries of London_ [First Series], iii. 19; _id._ Second

Series, i. 287; letter of Philip Hervey, quoted by Kenneth R. H.

Mackenzie, in _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of

London_, Second Series, ii. 75-77; Julius L. Brenchley,

_Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S. "Curacoa" among the South

Sea Islands in 1865_ (London, 1873), p. 132 (with a woodcut);

(Sir) Basil Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_ (Edinburgh

and London, 1894), pp. 380-382 (with a woodcut on p. 393); _id._

"Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal of the

Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 81-84 (with a

photograph). Views of the monument, taken apparently from

photographs, have also been published by Dr. F. H. H. Guillemard

(_Australasia_, vol. ii. London, 1894, p. 501), Dr. George Brown

(_Melanesians and Polynesians_, London, 1910, plate facing p.

410), and by Mr. S. Percy Smith (_Hawaiki_, Third Edition,

Christchurch, N.Z., 1910, pp. 157 _sq._). Dr. W. H. R. Rivers

spoke as if there were several trilithons in Tongataboo

(_History of Melanesian Society_, ii. 430 _sq._; _id._ "Sun-cult

and Megaliths in Oceania," _American Anthropologist_, N.S.

xvii., 1915, p. 444); but in this he seems to have been

mistaken. So far as I can gather, there is only one of these

remarkable monuments in Tongataboo or indeed in the whole of the

Pacific.

The monument in question is a structure of the type known as a

trilithon; that is, it is composed of three large stones, of which two

stand upright, while the third rests horizontally on their tops. All

three stones are monoliths of hardened coral, rough and much weathered

on the surface, and precisely similar to the coral of the neighbouring

reefs. Indeed, about halfway between the monument and the beach the

coral rock is exposed in a hollow, from which it seems probable that the

great blocks were hewn and brought to their present situation. The

statement of Mr. Brenchley, that the stone of which the monument

consists is not to be found elsewhere on the island, is erroneous. The

uprights are quadrangular monoliths neatly squared. No measurements of

the stones appear to be on record, but the two uprights are variously

estimated to measure from fourteen to sixteen feet in height; their

breadth or depth from front to back is variously given as from eight to

ten or even twelve feet; but they seem to taper somewhat upwards, for

the estimate which assigns twelve feet for the depth of the uprights at

their base, mentions seven feet or probably more as their breadth at the

top. The thickness of the uprights seems to be four feet. The space

between them is variously stated at ten and twelve feet. The

cross-stone, which rests on the two uprights, is reported to measure

twenty-four feet in length, by four or five feet in depth, and two feet

in thickness. Each of the uprights is estimated by Sir Basil Thomson to

weigh not less than fifty tons. The tops of both are deeply mortised to

receive the cross-stone, the ends of which are sunk into them instead of

being laid flat on the top. The cross-stone lies east and west, so that

the opening between the uprights faces north and south. On the upper

surface of the cross-stone, and at about the middle of it, is a cup-like

hollow, very carefully cut, about the size of a coco-nut shell. A large

bowl of the same material is said to have formerly stood on the

cross-stone, but the statement is not made by an eyewitness and is

probably mistaken.[180]

[180] For the authorities, see the preceding note. The

measurements, to some extent discrepant, are given by Dr.

Charles Forbes, Mr. Philip Hervey, and the passengers of s.s.

_Wairarapa_, as reported by Sir Basil Thomson _Journal of the

Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. 82 _sq._), who had

unfortunately mislaid his own notes containing the measurements.

The statement that the monument was surmounted by a large bowl

is made by Mr. Brenchley, in whose sketch of the structure the

bowl figures. But Mr. Brenchley did not himself see the

monument, and nobody else appears to have seen the bowl. I

suspect that the report of the bowl may have originated in a

hasty reading of Mr. Hervey's statement that "on the centre of

it [the cross-stone] a small cava bowl is scooped out," though

in Mr. Brenchley's account the bowl has seemingly increased in

size. Similarly in his report the height of the uprights has

grown to about thirty feet, which appears to be just double of

their real size. Perhaps Mr. Brenchley's erroneous allegation as

to the material of the monument similarly originated in a

misunderstanding of Mr. Hervey's statement that "the material is

the coral rock, or coral rag which are formed of stone brought

from Wallis's Island."

The name which the natives give to this megalithic monument is

_Haamonga_ or _Ho ha Mo-nga Maui_, which is said to mean "Maui's

burden." The name is explained by a story that the god or hero Maui

brought the massive stones in a gigantic canoe from Uea (Wallis Island),

where the great holes in the rock from which he quarried them may still

be seen. From the canoe he bore them on his back to the spot where they

now stand.[181] This story can hardly be thought to throw much light on

the origin of the monument; for the natives are in the habit of

referring the marvels which they do not understand to the action of the

god or hero Maui, just as the ancient Greeks fathered many natural

wonders on the deified hero Hercules.[182] But from Mateialona, Governor

of Haapai and cousin of the King of Tonga, Sir Basil Thomson obtained a

tradition of the origin of the stones which is at least free from the

miraculous element and connects the monument with Tongan history. The

account runs thus: "Concerning the Haamonga of Maui, they say forsooth

that a Tui Tonga (the sacred line of chiefs), named Tui-ta-tui,

erected it, and that he was so named because it was a time of

assassination.[183] And they say that he had it built for him to sit

upon during the Faikava (ceremony of brewing kava), when the people sat

round him in a circle, and that the king so dreaded assassination that

he had this lordly seat built for himself that he might sit out of the

reach of his people. And this, they say, is the origin of the present

custom of the Faikava, it being now forbidden for any one to sit behind

the king." At such wassails the presiding chief sits at the apex of an

oval. To this tradition Sir Basil Thomson adds: "Mr. Shirley Baker told

me that he believed the Haamonga to have been erected as a _fakamanatu_

(memorial) to the son of some Tui Tonga, a view that finds support in

the fondness of Tongan chiefs for originality in the burial ceremonies

of their near relations--witness Mariner's account of the funeral of

Finau's daughter--but on the other hand native traditions generally

have a kernel of truth, and the legend of Tui-ta-tui and its

consequences finds an analogy in our own custom of guarding against an

assassin's dagger at the drinking of the loving cup."[184] The tradition

receives some confirmation from the bowl-like hollow on the upper

surface of the cross-stone; for the hollow might have served as the

king's drinking-cup to hold his kava at the customary wassails. Indeed,

Mr. Philip Hervey, the first to examine the monument, describes the

hollow in question as "a small cava bowl";[185] and after giving an

account of the monument Mr. Brenchley adds: "Its history seems to be

entirely unknown, but it is very natural to suppose from its form that

it was connected with some ancient kava ceremonies."[186]

[181] Charles Forbes, in _Archaeologia_, xxxv. 496 (who gives

_Ho ha Mo-nga Maui_ as the name of the stones); (Sir) Basil

Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, p. 382; _id._, "Notes

upon the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological

Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 81 (who gives _Haamonga_ as the

native name of the stones).

[182] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) p. 81. Maui is the great hero of Polynesia, known in

nearly every group of islands, generally regarded as a demigod

or deified man, but sometimes and in some places rising to the

dignity of full godhead. He appears, says Mr. E. Tregear, to

unite the classical attributes of Hercules and Prometheus. See

E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 233,

_s.v._ "Maui."

[183] "_Tui-ta-tui, lit._ 'King-strike-King.'"

[184] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) p. 82.

[185] _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London_,

Second Series, ii. 77.

[186] Julius L. Brenchley, _Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S.

"Curacoa" among the South Sea Islands in 1865_ (London, 1873),

p. 132.

The tradition which connects the erection of the monument with the reign

of a Tooitonga named Tui-ta-tui is further countenanced, if not

confirmed, by a list of the Tooitongas, in which the name of Tui-ta-tui

occurs as the eleventh in descent from the great god Tangaloa.[187] This

Tui-ta-tui is believed to have reigned in the thirteenth or fourteenth

century of our era.[188] From the size and style of the masonry Sir

Basil Thomson is disposed to assign the monument to a later date. He

points out that for the quarrying and mortising of stones that weigh

some fifty tons apiece the craft of stone-cutting must have been fully

developed; and from a comparison of the megalithic tombs of the

Tooitongas which can be approximately dated, he infers that the craft of

stone-cutting in Tonga reached its culmination at the end of the

seventeenth century, though it was still practised down to the beginning

of the nineteenth century; for Mariner tells us that in his time a

professional class of masons was set apart for building the stone

sepulchral vaults of chiefs.[189] Yet on the whole Sir Basil Thomson

concludes that "when one is left to choose between a definite native

tradition on the one hand and probability on the other for the

assignment of a date, I would prefer the tradition. If the Tongans had

invented the story as a mere expression for antiquity they would not

have pitched upon Tui-ta-tui, about whom nothing else is recorded, in

preference to Takalaua, Kau-ulu-fonua-fekai, or any of the kings who

loom large in traditionary history. Whether the Haamonga was built for a

throne or for a memorial, doubtless it is connected with the reign of

Tui-ta-tui, who lived in the fourteenth century."[190]

[187] (Sir) Basil Thomson, _Diversions of a Prime Minister_, p.

395. In this work the author prints a list of the Tooitongas "as

given by Mr. E. Tregear on the authority of the Rev. J. E.

Moulton."

[188] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) p. 83; S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki_, p. 158.

[189] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 266. As to the size of

the stones, Mariner says, "The stones used for this purpose are

about a foot in thickness, and are cut of the requisite

dimensions, out of the stratum found on the beaches of some of

the islands."

[190] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) pp. 83 _sq._

As an alternative to the view that the hollow on the cross-stone was a

kava bowl Dr. Rivers suggests that it "may have been destined to receive

the skull and other bones of the dead, so often preserved in

Polynesia."[191] The suggestion accords well with the opinion that the

monument is a memorial of the dead, and it might be supported by the

Samoan practice of severing a dead chief's head from his body and

burying it separately, to save it from being dug up and desecrated by

enemies in time of war.[192] However, Dr. Rivers is careful to add that

such a practice is not recorded in Tonga and appears to be incompatible

with the mode of sepulture which prevails there.

[191] W. H. R. Rivers, _History of Melanesian Society_, ii. 431.

[192] See below, p. 212.

In this connexion another megalithic monument of the Tonga islands

deserves to be considered, though it appears to have been commonly

overlooked. It was observed by Captain Cook in the island of Lefooga

(Lifuka). He says: "Near the south end of the island, and on the west

side, we met with an artificial mount. From the size of some trees that

were growing upon it, and from other appearances, I guessed that it had

been raised in remote times. I judged it to be about forty feet high;

and the diameter of its summit measured fifty feet. At the bottom of

this mount stood a stone, which must have been hewn out of coral rock.

It was four feet broad, two and a half thick, and fourteen high; and we

were told by the natives present, that not above half its length

appeared above ground. They called it _Tangata Arekee_;[193] and said,

that it had been set up, and the mount raised, by some of their

forefathers, in memory of one of their kings; but how long since, they

could not tell."[194]

[193] "_Tangata_, in their language, is man; _Arekee_, king."

[194] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 298 _sq._ To this

description of the monument Sir Basil Thomson has called

attention; he rightly classes it with the tombs of the chiefs.

See his "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal of the

Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 85.

When we remember that Tongan kings were commonly buried in such mounds

as Captain Cook here describes, and further that these mounds were

commonly enclosed or faced with great blocks of hewn stone, we may be

disposed to accept as reasonable and probable the explanation which the

natives gave of this great monolith, which, if the reported measurements

of it are correct, must have been no less than twenty-eight feet high.

If it was indeed a memorial of a dead king, it might be thought to

strengthen the view that the great trilithon was also set up as a

monument to a deceased monarch or Tooitonga.

Another possible explanation of the trilithon is, as Sir Basil Thomson

points out, that it served as a gateway to some sacred spot inland. But

against this view he observes that he examined the bush for some

distance in the neighbourhood without finding any trace of ruins or

stones of any kind. He adds that the memory of sacred spots dies very

hard in Tonga, and that the natives do not believe the trilithon to have

been a gateway.[195]

[195] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) pp. 81 _sq._

It is natural to compare the trilithon of Tongataboo with the famous

trilithons of Stonehenge, which it resembles in plan and to which it is

comparable in size. The resemblance struck Dr. Charles Forbes, the first

to publish a description of the monument based on personal observation.

He says: "The route we pursued led us over a country perfectly level,

with the exception of occasional mounds of earth, apparently artificial,

and reminding one very much of the barrows of Wilts and Dorset, which

idea is still more strongly impressed upon the mind on coming in sight

of the monument, which bears a most striking resemblance to the larger

gateway-looking stones at Stonehenge."[196] But at the same time, as Dr.

Forbes did not fail to note, the Tongan trilithon differs in some

respects from those of Stonehenge. In the first place the interval (ten

or twelve feet) between the uprights of the Tongan trilithon appears to

be much greater than the interval between the uprights of the trilithons

at Stonehenge.[197] In the second place, the cross-stone of the Tongan

trilithon is mortised much more deeply into the uprights than are the

cross-stones at Stonehenge. For whereas at Stonehenge these cross-stones

present the appearance of being laid flat on the top of the uprights,

the cross-stone of the Tongan trilithon is sunk deeply into the uprights

by means of mortises or grooves about two feet wide which are cut into

the uprights, so that the top of the cross-stone is nearly flush with

their tops, while its ends also are nearly flush with their outside

surfaces.[198]

[196] Dr. Charles Forbes, in _Archaeologia_, xxxv. p. 496.

[197] I have no measurements of these intervals, but write from

the impression of a recent visit to Stonehenge.

[198] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of

Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.

(1902) p. 82, quoting the anonymous pamphlet _The Wairarapa

Wilderness_.

As the origin and purpose of Stonehenge are still unknown, its massive

trilithons can hardly be cited to explain the similar monument of

Tongataboo. The rival theories which see in Stonehenge a memorial of the

dead and a temple of the sun[199] are equally applicable or inapplicable

to the Tongan monument. In favour of the mortuary character of this

solitary trilithon it might be urged that the Tongans were long

accustomed to erect megalithic monuments, though of a different type, at

the tombs of their sacred kings, which are situated not many miles away;

but against this view it may be argued that there are no traces of

burial or graves in the immediate neighbourhood, and that native

tradition, not lightly to be set aside, assigns a different origin to

the monument. Against the solar interpretation of the trilithon it may

be alleged, first, that the monument faces north and south, not east and

west, as it might be expected to do if it were a temple of the sun or a

gateway leading into such a temple; second, that, while a circle of

trilithons, as at Stonehenge, with an opening towards the sunrise may be

plausibly interpreted as a temple of the sun, such an interpretation

cannot so readily be applied to a solitary trilithon facing north and

south; and, third, that no trace of sun-worship has been discovered in

the Tonga islands. So far as I have observed, the Tongan pantheon is

nowhere said to have included a sun-god, and the Tongans are nowhere

reported to have paid any special respect to the sun. Savages in

general, it may be added, appear to be very little addicted to

sun-worship; it is for the most part among peoples at a much higher

level of culture, such as the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and

Peruvians, that solar worship becomes an important, or even the

predominant, feature of the national faith.[200] Perhaps the impulse to

it came rather from the meditations of priestly astronomers than from

the random fancies of common men. Some depth of thought was needed to

detect in the sun the source of all life on earth; the immutable

regularity of the great luminary's movements failed to rouse the

interest or to excite the fear of the savage, to whom the elements of

the unusual, the uncertain, and the terrible are the principal

incentives to wonder and awe, and hence to reflexion. We are all

naturally more impressed by extraordinary than by ordinary events; the

fine edge of the mind is dulled by familiarity in the one case and

whetted by curiosity in the other.

[199] Lord Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, Seventh Edition

(London, 1913), pp. 132 _sqq._; Sir Norman Lockyer, _Stonehenge

and other British Stone Monuments astronomically considered_

(London, 1906); C. Schuchhardt, "Stonehenge," _Zeitschrift fuer

Ethnologie_, xlii. (1910), pp. 963-968; _id._ in _Zeitschrift

fuer Ethnologie_, xliii. (1911) pp. 169-171; _id_., in

_Sitzungsberichte der koenigl. preuss. Akademie der

Wissenschaften_, 1913, pp. 759 _sqq._ (for the sepulchral

interpretation); W. Pastor, "Stonehenge," _Zeitschrift fuer

Ethnologie_, xliii. (1911) pp. 163-(for the solar

interpretation).

[200] Adolph Bastian observed that "sun-worship, which people

used to go sniffing about to discover everywhere, is found on

the contrary only in very exceptional regions or on lofty

table-lands of equatorial latitude." See his book, _Die Voelker

des Oestlichen Asien_, iv. (Jena, 1868) p. 175. Nobody,

probably, has ever been better qualified than Bastian to

pronounce an opinion on such a subject; for his knowledge of the

varieties of human thought and religion, acquired both by

reading and travel, was immense. It is only to be regretted that

through haste or negligence he too often gave out the fruits of

his learning in a form which rendered it difficult to sift and

almost impossible to digest them. Yet from his storehouse he

brought forth a treasure, of which we may say what Macaulay said

of the scholarship of Parr, that it was "too often buried in the

earth, too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant

ostentation, but still precious, massive, and splendid."

Bearing in mind the numerous other stone monuments scattered widely over

the islands of the Pacific, from the Carolines to Easter Island, Dr.

Guillemard concludes that some race, with a different, if not a higher

civilisation preceded the Polynesian race in its present homes, and to

this earlier race he would apparently refer the erection of the

trilithon in Tongataboo.[201] He may be right. Yet when we consider,

first, the native tradition of the setting up of the trilithon by one of

the sacred kings of Tonga; second, the practice of the Tongans of

building megalithic tombs for these same sacred kings; and, third, the

former existence in Tonga of a professional class of masons whose

business it was to construct stone vaults for the burial of chiefs,[202]

we may hesitate to resort to the hypothesis of an unknown people in

order to explain the origin of a monument which the Tongans, as we know

them, appear to have been quite capable of building for themselves.

[201] F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. 500.

[202] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 266.

Sec. 11. _Rites of Burial and Mourning_

The only mode of disposing of the dead which was practised in the Tonga

islands seems to have been burial in the earth. So far as appears, the

corpse was not doubled up, but laid at full length in the grave; at all

events I have met with no mention of burying a corpse in a contracted

posture; and Captain Cook says that "when a person dies, he is buried,

after being wrapped up in mats and cloth, much after our manner." He

adds that, while chiefs had the special burial-places called _fiatookas_

appropriated to their use, common people were interred in no particular

spot.[203] So far as I have observed, none of our authorities speak of a

practice of embalming the dead or of giving the bodies any particular

direction in the grave.

[203] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 421.

After a death the mourners testified their sorrow by dressing in old

ragged mats and wearing green leaves of the _ifi_ tree round their

necks. Thus attired they would repair to the tomb, where, on entering

the enclosure, they would pull off the green twigs from their necks and

throw them away; then sitting down they would solemnly drink kava.[204]

Further, they accompanied their cries and ejaculations of grief and

despair by inflicting on their own bodies many grievous wounds and

injuries. They burned circles and scars on their bodies, beat their

teeth with stones, struck shark's teeth into their heads till the blood

flowed in streams, and thrust spears into the inner part of the thigh,

into their sides below the arm-pits, and through the cheeks into the

mouth.[205] Women in wailing would cut off their fingers, and slit their

noses, their ears, and their cheeks.[206] At the funerals of the kings

especially the mourners indulged in frantic excesses of self-torture and

mutilation. Of two such funerals we have the detailed descriptions of

eye-witnesses who resided in the islands at a time when the natives were

as yet practically unaffected by European influence. King Moom[=o]oe

died in April 1797, and the first missionaries to Tonga witnessed and

described his funeral. They have told how, when the corpse was being

carried in procession to a temporary house near the royal burial-ground

(_fiatooka_), it was preceded by relatives of the deceased in the usual

mourning garb, who cut their heads with shark's teeth till the blood

streamed down their faces. A few days later, when the burial was to take

place, the missionaries found about four thousand people assembled at

the mound where the body was to be interred. In a few minutes they heard

a great shouting and blowing of conch-shells, and soon after there

appeared about a hundred men, armed with clubs and spears, who, rushing

into the area, began to cut and mangle themselves in a most dreadful

manner. Many struck their heads such violent blows with their clubs that

the sound could be heard thirty or forty yards off, and they repeated

them till the blood ran down in streams. Others, who had spears, thrust

them through their thighs, arms, and cheeks, all the while calling on

the deceased in a most affecting manner. A native of Fiji, who had been

a servant of the late king, appeared quite frantic; he entered the area

with fire in his hand, and having previously oiled his hair, he set it

ablaze, and ran about with it all on flame. When they had satisfied or

exhausted themselves with this manner of torment, they sat down, beat

their faces with their fists, and then retired. A second party then

inflicted on themselves the same cruelties. A third party next entered,

shouting and blowing shells; four of the foremost held stones, which

they used to knock out their teeth, while those who blew the shells

employed them as knives with which they hacked their heads in a shocking

manner. A man who had a spear pierced his arm with it just above the

elbow, and with it sticking fast in his flesh ran about the area for

some time. Another, who seemed to be a principal chief, acted as if

quite bereft of his senses; he ran to every corner of the area, and at

each station beat his head with a club till the blood flowed down on his

shoulders. At this point the missionary, unable to bear the sight of

these self-inflicted tortures, quitted the scene. When his colleagues

visited the place some hours later in the afternoon, they found the

natives of both sexes still at the dreadful work of cutting and mangling

themselves. In the course of these proceedings a party of mourners

entered the area, sixteen of whom had recently cut off their little

fingers. They were followed by another party with clubs and spears, who

battered and wounded themselves in the usual fashion, and also

disfigured their faces with coco-nut husks, which they had fastened to

the knuckles of both hands. The missionaries noticed that the mourners

who were either related to the dead king or had held office under him,

were the most cruel to themselves; some of them thrust two, three, and

even four spears into their arms, and so danced round the area, while

others broke off the spear-heads in their flesh.[207]

[204] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 345 _sq._ As to the

mourning costume of mats and leaves, see also Captain James

Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_, p.

240; W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 380, 392, 431, ii. 214

_sq._

[205] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_ v. 420.

[206] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_,

xvii. (1845) p. 13.

[207] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean_, pp. 242-244.

Similar scenes were witnessed some years later by Mariner at the death

and burial of Finow, another king of Tonga; and the Englishman has

described from personal observation how on this occasion the mourners

cut and wounded their heads and bodies with clubs, stones, knives, or

sharp shells. This they did on one or other of the _malais_[208] or

ceremonial grounds in the presence of many spectators, vying apparently

with each other in the effort to surpass the rest in this public

manifestation of their sorrow for the death of the king and their

respect for his memory. As one ran out into the middle of the ground he

would cry, "Finow! I know well your mind; you have departed to Bolotoo,

and left your people under suspicion that I, or some of those about you,

were unfaithful; but where is the proof of infidelity? where is a single

instance of disrespect?" Then, inflicting violent blows and deep cuts on

his head with a club, stone, or knife, he would again exclaim at

intervals, "Is this not a proof of my fidelity? does this not evince

loyalty and attachment to the memory of the departed warrior?" Some more

violent than others cut their heads to the skull with such heavy and

repeated blows that they reeled and lost their reason for a time.[209]

The king's successor, Finow the Second, not content with the usual

instruments of torture, employed a saw for the purpose, striking his

skull with the teeth so violently that he staggered for loss of blood;

but this he did, not at the time of the burial and in presence of the

multitude, but some weeks later at a more private ceremony of mourning

before the grave.[210] At the public ceremony the late king's fishermen

varied the usual breaking of heads and slashing of bodies by a peculiar

form of self-torment. Instead of clubs they appropriately carried the

paddles of canoes, with which they battered their heads in the orthodox

style; but besides every man of them had three arrows stuck through each

cheek in a slanting direction, so that, while the points pierced through

the cheeks into the mouth, the other ends went over the shoulder and

were kept in position by another arrow, the point of which was tied to

the ends of the arrows passing over one shoulder, while the other end

was tied to the ends of the other arrows which passed over the other

shoulder. Thus each fisherman was decorated with a triangle of arrows,

of which the apex consisted of six arrow-heads in his mouth, while the

base dangled on his back. With this remarkable equipment they walked

round the grave, beating their faces and heads with their paddles, or

pinching up the skin of the breast and sticking a spear right through

it.[211]

[208] Mariner defines a _malai_ as "a piece of ground, generally

before a large house, or chief's grave, where public ceremonies

are principally held" (_Tonga Islands_, vol. ii., "Vocabulary"

_s.v._). It is the same word as _malae_ or _marae_, noticed

above, p. 116, note^3.

[209] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 379-384.

[210] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 440-442.

[211] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 404 _sq._

The grave of a chief's family was a vault paved with a single large

stone, while the four walls were formed each of a single block. The

vault was about eight feet long, six feet broad, and eight feet deep,

and was covered at the top by one large stone.[212] So heavy was this

covering stone that, as we have seen, from a hundred and fifty to two

hundred men were required to lift and lower it.[213] Mariner estimated

that the family vault in which King Finow was interred was large enough

to hold thirty bodies. When the king's corpse was being deposited in it,

Mariner saw two dry and perfectly preserved bodies lying in the vault,

together with the bones of several others; and he was told by old men

that the well-preserved bodies had been buried when they, his

informants, were boys, which must have been upwards of forty years

before; whereas the bodies of which nothing but the bones remained had

been buried later. The natives attributed the exceptional preservation

of the two to the better constitution of their former owners; Mariner,

or more probably his editor, Dr. Martin, preferred to suppose that the

difference was due to the kind or duration of the disease which had

carried them off. Apparently the natives did not suggest that the bodies

had been embalmed, which they would almost certainly have done if they

had known of such a custom.[214] No sooner was the king's body deposited

in the grave, and the great stone lowered over it, than certain

ministers (_matabooles_) and warriors ran like men frantic round and

round the burial-ground, exclaiming, "Alas! how great is our loss!

Finow! you are departed; witness this proof of our love and loyalty!" At

the same time they cut and bruised their own heads with clubs, knives,

and axes in the usual fashion.[215] Afterwards the grave was filled up

with earth and strewed with sand, which a company of women and men had

brought for the purpose in baskets from a place at the back of the

island; what remained of the sand was scattered over the sepulchral

mound (_fytoca_), of which it was deemed a great embellishment. The

inside of the burial-ground was then spread with mats made of coco-nut

leaves.[216]

[212] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 144 note *.

[213] See above, p. 105.

[214] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 388 note *.

[215] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 388 _sq._

[216] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 389-392.

Meantime the company of mourners had been seated on the green before the

burial-ground, still wearing their mourning garb of mats, with leaves of

the _ifi_ tree strung round their necks. They now arose and went to

their homes, where they shaved their heads and burnt their cheeks with a

lighted roll of bark-cloth, by applying it once upon each cheek-bone;

next they rubbed the place with an astringent berry, which caused it to

bleed, and afterwards they smeared the blood in a broad circle round the

wound, giving themselves a very ghastly appearance. They repeated this

friction with the berry every day, making the wound bleed afresh; and

the men meanwhile neglected to shave and to oil themselves during the

day, though they indulged in these comforts at night. Having burnt their

cheeks and shaved their heads, they built for themselves small temporary

huts, where they lived during the time of mourning, which lasted twenty

days.[217]

[217] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 392 _sq._

The women who had become tabooed, that is, in a state of ceremonial

pollution, by touching the king's dead body, remained constantly within

the burial-ground for the twenty days of mourning, except when they

retired to one of the temporary huts to eat,[218] or rather to be fed by

others. For it was a rule that no ordinary person, man or woman, could

touch a dead chief without being tabooed, that is ceremonially polluted,

for ten lunar months, during which time he or she might not touch food

with their own hands. But for chiefs the period of pollution was

limited to three, four, or five months, according to the superiority of

the dead chief. Only when the dead body which they had touched was that

of the sacred chief, the Tooitonga, they were all tabooed for ten

months, however high their rank; for example, the king's wife was

tabooed for that length of time during the residence of Mariner, because

she had touched the dead body of the Tooitonga. During the time that a

person was tabooed, he might not feed himself with his own hands, but

must be fed by somebody else: he might not even use a toothpick himself,

but might guide another person's hand holding the toothpick. If he was

hungry and had no one to feed him, he must go down on his hands and

knees, and pick up his victuals with his mouth; and if he infringed any

of these rules, it was firmly expected that he would swell up and

die.[219] Captain Cook observed this custom in operation at Tongataboo.

On one of his walks he met with a party of women at supper, and noticed

that two of them were being fed by others. On asking the reason, he was

answered _taboo mattee_, that is, "Death taboo." It was explained to him

that one of the women had washed the dead body of a chief two months

before, and that consequently she might not handle any food for five

months. The other had performed the same office for the corpse of

another person of inferior rank, and was now under the same restriction,

but not for so long a time.[220] The tabooed women at Finow's grave were

supplied with food by the new king, Finow the Second. The food was

brought and placed on the ground at some distance from the grave, or

else it was deposited before the temporary house to which the chief of

the tabooed women retired to be fed. With the provisions was also sent

every day a supply of torches to light up the burial-ground by night.

The torches were held up by a woman of inferior rank, who, when she was

tired, was relieved in her office by another. During the twenty days of

mourning, if any one passed the burial-ground, he had to go at a slow

pace, with his head bowed down, and his hands clasped before him; and

if he carried a burden, he must lower it from his shoulder and carry it

in his hands or on his bended arms; but if he could not do so

conveniently, he had to make a circuit to avoid the grave.

[218] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 393.

[219] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 141 note *.

[220] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 336. The writer does not

translate the expression _taboo mattee_; but _mate_ is the

regular Tongan word for "death" or "to die." See Mariner, _Tonga

Islands_, Vocabulary, _s.v._ "Mate." Compare E. Tregear,

_Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 228, _s.v._

"Mate."

Such were the regular observances at the death and burial of chiefs;

they were not peculiar to the obsequies of Finow the king.[221]

[221] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 394 _sq._

The twentieth day of mourning concluded the ceremonies in honour of the

deceased monarch. Early in the morning all his relations, together with

the members of his household, and also the women who were tabooed on

account of having touched his dead body in the process of oiling and

preparing it, went to the back of the island to procure a quantity of

flat pebbles, principally white, but a few black, which they brought

back in baskets to the grave. There they strewed the inside of the house

and the outside of the burial-ground (_fytoca_) with the white pebbles

as a decoration; the black pebbles they laid only on the top of those

white ones which covered the ground directly over the body, to about the

length and breadth of a man, in the form of a very eccentric ellipse.

After that, the house on the burial mound was closed up at both ends

with a reed fencing, which reached from the eaves to the ground; while

at the front and the back the house was closed with a sort of

basket-work, made of the young branches of the coco-nut tree, split and

interwoven in a very curious and ornamental way. These fences were to

remain until the next burial, when they would be taken down and, after

the conclusion of the ceremony, replaced by new ones of similar pattern.

A large quantity of food and kava was now sent by the chiefs and the

king to the public place (_malai_) in front of the burial mound, and

these provisions were served out among the people in the usual way. The

company then separated and repaired to their respective houses, to

prepare for the dances and the grand wrestling-match, which were to

conclude the funeral rites.[222]

[222] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 401-403.

During the intervals of the dances, which followed, several warriors and

ministers (_matabooles_) ran before the grave, cutting and bruising

their heads with axes, clubs, and so forth as proofs of fidelity to

their late chief, the dead and buried King Finow. It was on this

occasion that the deceased king's fishermen demonstrated their loyalty

and attachment to his memory by the self-inflicted tortures which I have

already described.[223] When these exhibitions of cruelty were over, the

day's ceremonies, which altogether lasted about six hours, were

terminated by a grand wrestling-match. That being over, the people

dispersed to their respective houses or occupations, and the obsequies

of Finow, king of the Tonga islands, came to an end.[224]

[223] Above, pp. 135 _sq._

[224] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 403-405.

The wrestling-match which wound up the funeral honours paid to the

departed monarch would seem not to have been an isolated case of

athletic sports held at this particular funeral. Apparently it was a

general custom in Tonga to conclude burial-rites with games of this

kind. At least we may infer as much from an expression made use of by

the first missionaries to Tongataboo. They say that the chief of their

district, after taking to himself a wife in the morning went in the

afternoon "to finish the funeral ceremonies for his brother, in

celebrating the games usual on that occasion."[225] The practice, which

is apt to seem to us incongruous, of holding games at a funeral, was

observed by the Greeks in antiquity and by not a few other peoples in

modern times.[226]

[225] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean_, p. 265.

[226] _The Golden Bough_, Part III., _The Dying God_, pp. 92

_sqq._

On the other hand the obsequies of the sacred or divine chief, the

Tooitonga, differed in certain remarkable particulars from the

posthumous honours generally paid to chiefs. It is true that his

burial-place was of the same form as that of other chiefs, and that the

mode of his interment did not differ essentially from theirs, except

that it was customary to deposit some of his most valuable property with

him in the grave, including his beads, whale's teeth, fine Samoan mats,

and other articles. Hence the family burying-place of the Tooitongas in

the island of Tongataboo, where the whole line of these pontiffs had

been interred, must have become very rich in the course of time; for no

native would dare to commit the sacrilege of stealing the treasures at

the holy tomb.[227] However, the sacrifice of property to the dead seems

not to have been, as Mariner supposed, peculiar to the funeral of the

Tooitonga; for at the burial of King Moom[=o]oe, in May 1797, the first

missionaries saw files of women and men bringing bags of valuable

articles, fine mats, and bales of cloth, which they deposited in the

tomb expressly as a present for the dead.[228] Again, the mourning

costume worn for the Tooitonga was the same as that for any chief,

consisting of ragged old mats on the body and leaves of the _ifi_ tree

round the neck; but in the case of the Tooitonga the time of mourning

was extended to four months, the mats being generally left off after

three months, while the leaves were still retained for another month;

and the female mourners remained within the burial-ground (_fytoca,

fiatooka_) for about two months, instead of twenty days, only retiring

occasionally to temporary houses in the neighbourhood to eat or for

other necessary purposes.[229]

[227] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 213 _sq._

[228] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean_, p. 243.

[229] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 214 _sq._

One very remarkable peculiarity in the mourning for a Tooitonga was

that, though he ranked above the king and all other chiefs, the mourners

strictly abstained from manifesting their grief by wounding their heads

and cutting their bodies in the manner that was customary at the

funerals of all other great men. Mariner was never able to learn the

reason for this abstention.[230]

[230] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 213.

Other peculiar features in the obsequies of a Tooitonga were the

following. In the afternoon of the day of burial, when the body of the

Tooitonga was already within the burial-ground, almost every man, woman,

and child, all dressed in the usual mourning garb, and all provided with

torches, used to sit down about eighty yards from the grave; in the

course of an hour a multitude of several thousands would thus assemble.

One of the female mourners would then come forth from the burial-ground

and call out to the people, saying, "Arise ye, and approach"; whereupon

the people would get up, and advancing about forty yards would again sit

down. Two men behind the grave now began to blow conch-shells, and six

others, with large lighted torches, about six feet high, advanced from

behind the burial-ground, descended the mound, and walked in single file

several times between the burial-ground and the people, waving their

flaming torches in the air. After that they began to ascend the mound,

whereupon all the people rose up together and made a loud crashing noise

by snapping their _bolatas_, which were pieces of the stem of a banana

tree used to receive the ashes falling from lighted torches. Having done

so, the people followed the torch-bearers in single file up the mound

and walked in procession round about the tomb (_fytoca_). As they passed

at the back of the tomb, they all, torch-bearers and people, deposited

their extinguished torches on the ground; while the female mourners

within thanked them for providing these things. Having thus marched

round, the people returned to their places and sat down. Thereupon the

master of the ceremonies came forward and ordered them to divide

themselves into parties according to their districts; which being done

he assigned to one party the duty of clearing away the bushes and grass

from one side of the grave, and to another party a similar task in

regard to another side of the grave, while a third party was charged to

remove rubbish, and so forth. In this way the whole neighbourhood of the

burial-ground was soon cleared, and when this was done, all the people

returned to the temporary houses which, as mourners, they were bound to

occupy.[231]

[231] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 215-217.

Soon after darkness had fallen, certain persons stationed at the grave

began again to sound the conches, while others chanted a song, or rather

recitative, partly in the Samoan dialect, partly in an unknown language,

of which the natives could give no account. None of them understood the

words, nor could they explain how their forefathers came to learn them.

All that they knew was that the words had been handed down from father

to son among the class of people whose business it was to direct burial

ceremonies. According to Mariner, some of the words were Tongan, and he

thought that the language was probably an old or corrupt form of Tongan,

though he could make no sense out of it. Such traditional repetition of

a litany in an unknown tongue is not uncommon among savages; it occurs,

for instance, very frequently among some of the aboriginal tribes of

Australia, where the chants or recitatives accompanying certain dances

or ceremonies are often passed on from one tribe to another, the members

of which perform the borrowed dance or ceremony and repeat by rote the

borrowed chants or recitatives without understanding a word of

them.[232]

[232] W. E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the

North-west-central Queensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane and London,

1897), pp. 117 _sq._; (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen,

_Northern Tribes of Central Australia_ (London, 1904), pp. 234,

235; _id._, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (London, 1899),

p. 281 note; _id._, _Across Australia_ (London, 1912), i. 244.

While the conches were sounding and the voices of the singers broke the

silence of night, about sixty men assembled before the grave, where they

awaited further orders. When the chanting was over, and the notes of the

conches had ceased to sound, one of the women mourners came forward, and

sitting down outside the graveyard addressed the men thus: "Men! ye are

gathered here to perform the duty imposed on you; bear up, and let not

your exertions be wanting to accomplish the work." With these words she

retired into the burial-ground. The men now approached the mound in the

dark, and, in the words of Mariner, or his editor, performed their

devotions to Cloacina, after which they withdrew. As soon as it was

daylight the next morning, the women of the first rank, wives and

daughters of the greatest chiefs, assembled with their female

attendants, bringing baskets and shells wherewith to clear up the

deposit of the preceding night; and in this ceremonious act of humility

no lady of the highest rank refused to take her part. Some of the

mourners in the burial-ground generally came out to assist, so that in a

very little while the place was made perfectly clean. This deposit was

repeated the fourteen following nights, and as punctually cleared away

by sunrise every morning. No persons but the agents were allowed to be

witnesses of these extraordinary ceremonies; at least it would have been

considered highly indecorous and irreligious to pry upon them. On the

sixteenth day, early in the morning, the same women again assembled, but

now they were dressed in the finest bark-cloth and beautiful Samoan

mats, decorated with ribbons and with wreaths of flowers round their

necks; they also brought new baskets, ornamented with flowers, and

little brooms very tastefully made. Thus equipped, they approached and

acted as if they had the same task to perform as before, pretending to

clear up the dirt, and to take it away in their baskets, though there

was no dirt to remove. Then they returned to the capital and resumed

their mourning dress of mats and leaves. Such were the rites performed

during the fifteen days; every day the ceremony of the burning torches

was also repeated.[233]

[233] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 217-219.

For one month from the day of burial, greater or less quantities of

provisions were brought every day and shared out to the people. On the

first day the quantity supplied was prodigious; but day by day the

supply gradually diminished till on the last day it was reduced to very

little.[234] Nevertheless the consumption or waste of food on such

occasions was so great that to guard against a future dearth of

provisions it was deemed necessary to lay a prohibition or taboo on the

eating of hogs, fowls, and coco-nuts for a period of eight or ten

months, though two or three plantations were exempted from this rigorous

embargo, to the end that in the meantime hogs, fowls, and coco-nuts

might be furnished for occasional religious rites, and that the higher

order of chiefs might be able to partake of these victuals. At the end

of the eight or ten months' fast the taboo was removed and permission to

eat of the forbidden foods was granted by the king at a solemn ceremony.

Immense quantities of yams having been collected and piled up in

columns, and some three or four hundred hogs having been killed, the

people assembled from all quarters at the king's _malai_ or public

place. Of the slaughtered hogs about twenty were deposited, along with a

large quantity of yams, at the grave of the deceased Tooitonga. The rest

of the provisions were shared out in definite proportions among the

gods, the king, the divine chief (the living Tooitonga), the inferior

chiefs, and the people, so that every man in the island of Tongataboo

got at least a mouthful of pork and yam. The ceremony concluded with

dancing, wrestling, and other sports, after which every person retired

to his home with his portion of food to share it with his family. The

hogs and yams deposited at the dead Tooitonga's grave were left lying

till the pork stank and the yams were rotten, whereupon the living

Tooitonga ordered that they should be distributed to all who chose to

apply for a portion. In strict law they belonged to the principal

chiefs, but as these persons were accustomed to feed on meat in a rather

less advanced stage of decomposition they kindly waived their claims to

the putrid pork and rotten yams in favour of the lower orders, who were

less nice in their eating.[235]

[234] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 220.

[235] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 112 _sq._, 120-126, ii.

220.

It was customary that the chief widow of the Tooitonga should be

strangled and interred with his dead body.[236] But the practice of

strangling a wife at her husband's funeral was not limited to the widows

of the Tooitongas. A similar sacrifice seems to have been formerly

offered at the obsequies of a king; for at the funeral of King Moomoeoe

the first missionaries to Tonga saw two of the king's widows being led

away to be strangled.[237]

[236] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 135, 209 _sq._, 214.

[237] Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern

Pacific Ocean_, p. 240.

The funeral and mourning customs which we have passed in review serve to

illustrate the Tongan conceptions of the soul and of its survival after

death. The strangling of widows was probably intended here as elsewhere

to despatch their spirits to attend their dead husbands in the spirit

land;[238] and the deposition of valuable property in the grave can

hardly have had, at least in origin, any other object than to ensure the

comfort of the departed in the other world, and incidentally, perhaps,

to remove from him any temptation to return to his sorrowing friends in

this world for the purpose of recovering the missing articles. The

self-inflicted wounds and bruises of the mourners were clearly intended

to impress the ghost with the sincerity of their regret at his departure

from this sublunary scene; if any doubt could linger in our minds as to

the intention of these extravagant proceedings, it would be set at rest

by the words with which, as we have seen, the mourners accompanied

them, calling on the dead man to witness their voluntary tortures and to

judge for himself of the genuineness of their sorrow. In this connexion

it is to be borne in mind that all dead noblemen, in the opinion of the

Tongans, were at once promoted to the rank of deities; so that it was in

their power to visit any disrespect to their memory and any defalcation

of their dues with the double terror of ghosts and of gods. No wonder

that the Tongans sought to keep on good terms with such mighty beings by

simulating, when they did not feel, a sense of the irreparable loss

which the world had sustained by their dissolution.

[238] This was the reason assigned for the strangling of widows

at their husband's funeral in Fiji. See John Williams,

_Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_,

pp. 478 _sq._

Sec. 12. _The Ethical Influence of Tongan Religion_

Surveyed as a whole, the Tongan religion presents a singular instance of

a creed which restricted the hope of immortality to the nobly born and

denied it to commoners. According to the doctrine which it inculcated,

the aristocratic pre-eminence accorded to chiefs in this world was more

than maintained by them in the next, where they enjoyed a monopoly of

immortality. And not content with sojourning in the blissful regions of

Bolotoo, their departed spirits often returned to earth to warn, to

direct, to threaten their people, either in dreams and visions of the

night, or by the mouth of the priests whom they inspired. Such beliefs

involved in theory and to some extent in practice a subjection of the

living to the dead, of the seen and temporal to the unseen and eternal.

In favour of the creed it may at least be alleged that, while it looked

to spiritual powers, whether ghosts or gods, for the reward of virtue

and the punishment of vice, it did not appeal to another life to redress

the balance of justice which had been disturbed in this one. The Tongan

religion inculcated a belief that the good and the bad alike receive a

recompense here on earth, thus implicitly repudiating the unworthy

notion that men can only be lured or driven into the narrow way of

righteousness by the hope of heaven or the fear of hell. So far the

creed based morality on surer foundations than any faith which would

rest the ultimate sanctions of conduct on the slippery ground of

posthumous rewards and punishments. In this respect, if in no other, we

may compare the Tongan religion to that of the Hebrew prophets. It has

been rightly observed by Renan that whereas European races in general

have found in the assurance of a life to come ample compensation for the

iniquities of this present life, the Hebrew prophets never appeal to

rewards and punishments reserved for a future state of existence. They

were not content with the conception of a lame and laggard justice that

limps far behind the sinner in this world and only overtakes him in the

next. According to them, God's justice is swift and sure here on earth;

an unjust world was in their eyes a simple monstrosity.[239] So too,

apparently, thought the Tongans, and some Europeans may be inclined to

agree with them.

[239] E. Renan, _Histoire du peuple d'Israel_, ii. 505.